My Favorite Thing About Valentine's Day Was the Day After

When I was in college, my favorite thing about Valentine’s Day was the day after. 

My roommate and I would go to multiple stores and scoop up all the marked-down bags of conversation hearts. 

For days, we’d eat handful after handful of those chalky, pastel hearts until there were no more to be found anywhere in town.

Fat-Free Food Rule
I ate the candy with gusto not only because I enjoyed its taste (unsurprisingly, my favorite childhood candy was Necco Wafers) but also because it was fat-free. 

This was the fat-free era and like many others who were also following this latest diet trend, I had a food rule that my diet should contain as little fat as possible. 

Practically everything I ate was low-fat or fat-free from yogurt, cream cheese and ice cream to salad dressing, rice cakes and cookies (hello, Snackwell's!).

Since the conversation hearts contained zero fat, I was able to enjoy them without my internal Food Police berating me and making me feel guilty like it did when I consumed so-called "bad" foods.

Scarcity Mindset
Looking back at my love affair with conversation hearts, I can now see that another factor was at play: scarcity. 

Because the Valentine’s Day candy was only available for a few weeks a year, it triggered a scarcity mindset. (Unlike today, you couldn’t buy conversation hearts year-round online—internet shopping wasn’t even a thing yet.)

When something we need or desire is scarce or under the threat of scarcity, it’s a natural human response to want to get as much of it as possible as fast as possible before it’s gone. 

We’re simply trying to ensure our needs are met. Doing so feels essential to our safety and survival, even with something as unessential as conversation hearts. 

Understandably, we saw the scarcity mindset big time with many different things during the pandemic, especially in the early days when folks panicked over items like toilet paper. Many of us who never worried much about having enough toilet paper were suddenly frantically buying a ton more than we ever had before.

Spotting Scarcity
It’s helpful to understand when scarcity is playing a role with something you’re eating. 

Otherwise, you may mistakenly believe that you’re out of control, that you lack willpower and self-discipline, that you can’t be trusted with the food and should never have it again. After all, this is what diet culture teaches us to believe. 

The scarcity you’re experiencing may be intentional, such as purposefully restricting certain foods, like bread or sweets. 

It could also be unintentional, such as only having access to a particular food for a limited time perhaps due to supply shortages, budget constraints or a holiday item that only comes around once a year. 

If I had access to conversation hearts year-round and ate them whenever I wanted, my desire to consume bagfuls of them come Valentine’s Day would have been much less. 

By enjoying them on a regular basis, I would have habituated to them. Their novelty would have worn off and they wouldn’t have been such a big deal. 

While I may have still sought out marked-down bags the day after the holiday because I loved a good deal (still do!) and the colorful candy with its cute sayings, I likely wouldn’t have felt the need to buy every last bag since scarcity was no longer a factor.

Permission to Be Human
I encourage you to reflect on the role scarcity plays in your relationship with food. 

Can you recall a time when you experienced a scarcity mindset with a particular food? What was that experience like for you? 

Did you find yourself consuming a lot of it due to a sense of deprivation or out of fear that it was going away soon? If so, how did you respond? Did you feel out of control, guilty, ashamed or compelled to make up for it?

Knowing what you know now—that it’s natural human behavior to desire and eat a lot of something that’s scarce—can you treat yourself with understanding, grace and compassion when you experience scarcity eating in the future? 

Above all, can you give yourself permission to be human?

My Front Tooth Broke Off. It Meant Restricting Food Again.

About a year ago, I broke my front tooth off—the entire thing!—when biting into the hard crust on a piece of toast. 

Naturally, I was quite alarmed when I felt a big gap in the front row of my teeth. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt, but it did really freak me out.

Turns out, a root canal I had decades earlier after a car accident had weakened my tooth. I had no idea it could potentially break off and didn’t have any indication that it was on the verge of doing so.

An emergency visit to my dentist resulted in a temporary tooth until I could have dental implant surgery. 

The fragility of the temporary tooth meant I had to limit what and how I ate to avoid breaking or pulling it off.

New Food Rules
For the first time since I gave up dieting, I had to restrict my eating.

After years spent overcoming all my food rules, I now had a new set of rules to follow.

Hard, tough, chewy, crunchy and sticky foods were pretty much off-limits. 

As I could no longer use my front teeth, biting into a sandwich, slice of pizza, bagel, apple and the like was a big no-no.

I had to cut my food into very small pieces which made eating a very slow and tedious process. 

Dental surgery, which happened about a month later, hurt like heck and cost a gazillion dollars, also came with another set of food rules. While recovering, I was instructed to only eat soft, cold, mild foods for a few weeks.

And, since I once again had a temporary tooth until the dental implant was ready for the final tooth, I also had to continue the initial eating restrictions for about another four months.

Restriction Resistance
If you’ve ever had dental surgery, you know all too well how painful it can be.

And, if you’ve reclaimed your ability to eat intuitively after a history of dieting and disordered eating, being told you need to restrict your eating again can bring up all sorts of complicated feelings and challenges.

For some, it can be a slippery slope back into past disordered eating behaviors; this was something I was conscientious of and careful about.

For many, like me, it can trigger a lot of resistance, frustration and anger.

Once you’ve had a taste of food freedom, it’s really hard to put limits on your eating again.

Even though I knew the restrictions were necessary and temporary, I was not a happy camper. 

It was the cold, rainy season when I had my dental surgery and I longed for a forbidden cup of hot tea and a bowl of warm soup. Cold food did not sound appealing at all.

Not being able to eat what I wanted made me feel deprived, unsatisfied and cranky.

Freedom and Ease
Throughout the entire ordeal, my eating was riddled with anxiety. 

While I once felt anxious about how every bite would impact my weight, I now felt anxious about how every bite might impact my tooth.

Just like when I was dieting, eating decisions felt complicated and stressful. There were times I didn’t even want to deal with food as it just felt too hard. 

Thankfully, I made it through that distressing period and was eventually able to resume my usual eating with one minor exception. To be on the safe side, my dentist advised me to avoid biting into anything hard with my front teeth going forward.

While there are times I long for the satisfaction of biting into a crisp apple rather than cutting it into small pieces, I’m totally on board with this minor limitation as I absolutely don’t want to repeat that painful, stressful and costly nightmare.

The entire experience reminded me of why I gave up dieting, and it gave me an even greater appreciation for the ability to eat with freedom and ease. 

I Now Eat Xmas Cookies Guilt-Free. And Stopped Researching Diets.

What’s your relationship like with holiday eating?

Do you love all the holiday fare yet feel overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, guilt or shame for eating in ways you typically don’t? 

At night, do you lie in bed resolving to start a new diet and exercise program in January?

Do you wish you could enjoy the holiday season without being distracted by all the food noise in your head? 

If so, you’re not alone—and it doesn’t have to be this way.

My clients have discovered that after working for a while on divesting from diet culture and eating more intuitively, their experience with holiday eating is much different than years prior. 

Over the years, their comments have sounded like this...

Zero Strings Attached
“I used to give myself a free pass to eat anything I wanted during the holidays. It wasn’t really free, however, as I believed I had to pay the price come January 1 by going on another diet and working out more. It’s so liberating to be able to enjoy all my holiday favorites with zero strings attached.”

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Stopped Stuffing Myself
“Since I’m no longer planning to cut out carbs in January, I no longer feel the need to stuff myself with sweets before they are off-limits.”

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No Looming Threat
“From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, I felt like I was engaging in one long Last Supper before my next diet started. The physical discomfort I felt from eating every meal as if it was going to be my last one convinced me all the more that I needed to get back on track in the new year. 

Thank goodness I now know it was the looming threat of another diet that was causing my scarcity-driven Last Supper eating. Without another diet around the corner, I'm now able to eat in a much more satisfying way.

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More Present and Engaged
“Once I started giving myself unconditional permission to eat whatever I want any day of the year, I stopped feeling obsessed with all the holiday food. I still love making it and eating it but I no longer think about it all the time. I'm now much more present for my loved ones and more engaged in other aspects of the season.” 

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Feel a Sense of Ease
“I used to go into the holiday season feeling deprived from my latest diet. As a result, I felt out of control with all that good food. It was like I had found water after being lost in the desert for months. I couldn’t get enough of it. Once I understood it was the dieting, not a lack of self-control, that caused me to eat in a binge-y way, I stopped restricting and eventually started feeling a sense of ease and peace with food."

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No Longer Feel Bad
“I still sometimes eat until I’m super full because the food is so delicious! The big difference is that I don’t feel bad about it anymore and I don’t feel like I have to make up for it.”

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Relief to Stop Researching
“In years past, I always spent New Year’s Day researching detox and diet plans. It’s a relief to know that this year I won’t be wasting my money on an expensive cleanse package or my time trying to learn the rules of a new diet program.”

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There's No Guilt
“My holiday eating is so much more enjoyable now that I no longer feel guilty for eating a bunch of Christmas cookies.”

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A Priceless Gift
Of course, the shift to more peaceful, pleasurable holiday eating doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to move away from diet culture toward a more intuitive relationship with food and your body.

Most people, including me, have found that with patience, practice and perseverance, the food stuff gets a little easier with each passing year.

To be able to eat with ease and gusto during the holiday season, and all year round, is a priceless gift—but even more so, it’s an inherent human right—that everyone deserves, including you.